Santo Domingo weekend activities

 Food-As you could expect, food will be a reoccurring theme among my blogs J I had my first freshly squeezed juice, and it was delicious!  Definitely one of the best things I have had since I’ve been here.  Little shacks and colmados sell cups of juice that they make from local pineapple, papaya, mango, lime, etc.  I had mango, and it was delicious!  Plus, it only costs 50 cents.

Church-I went to church this Sunday at the closest Christian church on the map.  This was the second time I had been to the church but the first time I had been able to stay for the entire service.  As it turns out, the service lasts for 2.5 hours!!!!  It is a great church, but I’m going to have to get used to the 2 ½ hr part…

Authentic Dominican meal-My friends and I went to a really neat restaurant called Adrian Tropical.  We ate outside overlooking the Caribbean Sea!  The restaurant serves traditional Dominican food.  I had mofongo.  Mofongo is mashed plantains with meat (I had chicken) and spices (like garlic).  Dominican food is known for being flavorful but not spicy.  The mofongo comes with a little bowl of chicken broth to eat with the mofongo since it is kind of dry.  The closest American food I can relate mofongo to is really thick mashed potatoes with shredded chicken.  As an appetizer the restaurant brought sancocho.  Sancocho is a local stew-like dish that always has at least 3-7 different types of meat in a brown broth.  I actually liked it, but this version didn’t have any bones in it.

Sancocho (It looks green here, but it was actually brown in real life)

My attempt to capture the water from our table

Mofongo is served in a mortar and pestle.  I'm not sure why it's shaped like troll hair...

 Pedicure-I had heard pedicures were cheap, so I decided it was time to try one out.  I just picked a random salon in a nearby neighborhood.  The ladies were nice but clearly not used to gringas coming in. J  The pedicure cost about seven dollars.  (For those of you men that don’t get pedicures regularly, this is less than half of the price in the US)  As long as I don’t get an infection, I’ll consider it a success!